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What do English teachers and Gollum have in common?

Here’s a little secret about English teachers: we are fiercely possessive of what we refer to as “My stories.” No, I don’t mean the physical books we keep in our classrooms – those are usually given out freely and with love. I mean we will get uuugly if someone in a different grade level starts teaching “my book” or “my story” or “my poem.” The conversation usually goes down like this:

Teacher A: One of my students told me Mrs. 8th Grade is teaching To Kill a Mockingbird.

Teacher B: (eyes bulging, full head swivel) Excuuuus me?!?!

Teacher A: She said they read the whole thing and she cried when they watched the movie.

Teacher B: (spluttering, now a deep shade of purple): They watched the movie too?!?! Great! Great! My plans are all ruined now. Who is this woman? Why can’t she just teach her own books?! I can’t believe she has the nerve. She should be spending more time on grammar anyway.

Sound familiar? Been there? Me too, I admit.

Why do we get so mad? There are several reasons, some more important to one teacher than another.

First, there are those instances when you want to be The One to Introduce the Most Important Story of All Time to our students. If The Tell-Tale Heart is your absolute favorite story, it is entirely understandable that you want to be the one to watch kids’ eyes grow big at the beating heart under the floorboards.

Second, we don’t want anyone to have an excuse to get out of the work. It’s hard enough to make sure kids read something the first time; how can we make sure they’ve read it twice?

Third, what if the kids are bored? It’s a challenge to keep them engaged with new material, so how will they be entertained by the same story?

Ideally, ELA teachers at all levels in a district are given the opportunity to meet and develop curriculum in vertical teams. (This should actually be a paid and valued series of meetings, to all wonderful administrators out there reading this blog.) But whether it’s due to intentional planning or lack thereof, the teaching of the same text at multiple grade levels actually offers its own unique benefits.

Allow me, for a moment, to be the Ghost of Reading Experiences Past. Travel back to when you were a young child. Did you have a favorite book? Did you make your parents read it to you a dozen times? A hundred? A gajillion? I know I’ve read the Biscuit books to my kids more times than I would like to “woof, woof.” (Seriously Biscuit, can’t you yelp or bark or howl every once in a while?)

Young kids aren’t trying to torture their parents when they ask for the same book over and over again; there are actual, legitimate developmental reasons for their fascination (re: obsession) with Goodnight, Moon or Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site or the decidedly less popular, Goodnight, Goodnight – I Already Said Goodnight!

Now, let’s have a visit from the Ghost of Reading Experiences Future. Think about your favorite books, stories, or poems. Do you plan on rereading these texts? As your future adult self, can you see yourself suddenly realizing that you never truly considered the depth of Mrs. March’s emotions? That as a young girl, you didn’t grasp Marmee’s loneliness and inner strength because you were thinking about Jo and Laurie?

Maybe you have a book you like to read every year. In the five years prior to having my own kids, I used to read the entire Lord of the Rings series over winter break. Returning to that story was like meeting up with old friends and reliving our favorite memories. Recently, NPR’s Juan Vidal wrote a column on the joys of rereading. He articulates many of the reasons why adults enjoy rereading – reasons that apply to our students as well.

So let’s take a look back at our initial concerns and debunk them.

1) The One to Introduce the Most Important Story: Does a story become any less important to a person because they’ve read it multiple times? Of course not. Every time we read a text, we uncover new layers of meaning. From year to year, people of every age evolve and grow, which means the personal lenses through which we see a text change color and sharpen. Even if kids are familiar with a text, you still have the opportunity to watch them make meaning and form new understandings.

2) Making Sure They’ve Read It: Knowing that kids are familiar with all of the basic details like character, plot, and setting, means that you can ask deeper, more thought-provoking questions. Its way easier to pass a quiz that poses questions like “Which Greek God tried to help Odysseus?” than a quiz that asks students, “In what ways did Athena play a critical role in assisting Odysseus on his journey?”

3) Fears of Boredom: Yes, some students may greet the news of re-reading with exclamations of “Again?!” But you can realign their attitudes and meet the kids where they’re at. Assure them that you don’t want them to be bored, so ask them what kinds of things they learned about or what activities they did with the story. Now, move them forward. Plan the text in light of the standards you know you need to address and the weaknesses of your students that you’re trying to strengthen. Reassure them that this is a great opportunity for them to stress less about understanding the story and to really dig into the deeper layers they didn’t have time to uncover in their previous class.

Reading the same text two years in a row (or, gasp, every year!) is not a bad thing. In fact, in can be a really, really great experience for students. Sometimes our passion for the texts we teach can cause a knee-jerk, head-spinning reaction when we perceive that someone is messing with what is “ours.” We become Golums, sitting in our classrooms, stroking “our” book, murmuring “My precious. My precious.”

If you ever find yourself in that situation, please drink some coffee. I’ve found that solves most problems. Next, remember that re-reading offers educational benefits and rich teaching opportunities. And finally, keep this in mind: these texts don’t belong to you or me or any one person. They are gifts that were forged by writers and given to humankind to share.

Just call me Samwise. Throw your fear into Mount Doom. Trust that the writers gave us these stories because we are meant to read them over and over and over again.

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One thought on “What do English teachers and Gollum have in common?”

I admit, I loved this post before I even read it, just because of the title!! So well written and SO true! This happens outside of the high school English departments. I love how you shared the fun and benefit of rereading. In fact, my favorite books and poems, I have read many times over! Why wouldn’t we want that same joy and depth of learning for our students? Thanks for sharing and I may even pick up one of my old favorites and read it again over break!